Who We Are

Edwin Cannan

The bio below comes from a published article and may now be dated.

Edwin Cannan (1861-1935) taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926, serving a long stretch as chairman after 1907. He had a reputation as a critic of classical economics, particularly for his 1893 work, A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848, and yet was devoted to Adam Smith, as represented by his famed edition of The Wealth of Nations (1904), the standard edition for generations, and by his explications of Smith, such as “Adam Smith as Economist: The Gospel of Mutual Service,” Economica, 1926. Ideologically, he started as a moderate “new liberal” interventionist, but around the time of his editing of Smith and the present essay (1902) moved sharply toward classical liberalism, and thereafter became a strong defender of classical liberal economic policies. Cannan realized an economics of plain language, concrete illustration, and institutional pertinence, and wrote a great deal for the general reader. Friedrich Hayek wrote of Cannan: “Many of his economic essays which he published in two volumes, The Economic Outlook (1912) and An Economist’s Protest (1927), deserve, even now, renewed and wider attention, and translation into other languages. Their simplicity, clarity and sound common sense make them models for the treatment of economic problems, and even some that were written before 1914 are still astonishingly topical. Cannan’s greatest merit, however, was the training, over many years, of a group of pupils at the London School of Economics.”

Testimonials

To be honest, I do not remember having heard of Econ Journal Watch until I was asked to write a paper for it. Since then I have become a fan, and I eagerly check out each new issue that comes online. Econ Journal Watch seems to me to fill a void in the current journal literature. The amount of commentary in the general interest journals has declined in recent years, especially the kind of commentary in which one economist tries to get at and challenge the basic point that another is making. I am not sure why this kind of commentary has declined. In fact, Econ Journal Watch has published some interesting articles wrestling with this issue, although a clear answer did not emerge. In any case, Econ Journal Watch provides a new forum for this kind of fundamental conversation. Another area that has almost disappeared from the mainstream journals is history of economic thought. Again Econ Journal Watch has provided a forum for this kind of research. Econ Journal Watch, in other words, is restarting conversation among economists. I think it will succeed. The only thing I do not like about Econ Journal Watch is the title. It sounds like some kind of media watch group that criticizes economic ideas that are not politically correct. In fact Econ Journal Watch appears to be unusually open to different points of view, and I think the conversation at Econ Journal Watch will continue to broaden as the readership grows. I therefore urge economists, indeed anyone concerned about economic issues, to read and lend their support to Econ Journal Watch.